To:G. V. CHICHERIN

Written:Written on November 19, 1920Published:First published in 1959 inLenin Miscellany XXXVI.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1976,

      Moscow,Volume 45,

      page54b.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet ArchiveYou may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ComradeChicherin,

Thenews from Britain, especially from Krasin (and
extracts from the newspapers), and particularly the news
that America will at once join (a trade agreement between
Russia and Britain) raises the urgent and extremely
important issue of a trade agreement with
Britain.[2]

Ifit is a question of peace or
war,[1]it should be tied in
with Batum and
Georgia.[3]

Then,on the question of debts, we should beabsolutely
surethat we are not made to pay.

Ifthere is a trade agreementwhowill have the right to
sign thefinal text?Krasin alone? or the Council of People’s
Commissars?

Thisquestionmust be urgently worked outin all itsaspects.

Withcommunist greetings,Lenin

[1]Inthe original the last three words are in English.—Ed.

[2]TheSoviet Government concluded a trade agreement with
Britain on March 16, 1921.

[3]Areference to the occupation of Batum Ivy British troops planned
with the consent of the Georgian Menshevik government. On
November 16, 1920, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs,
G. V. Chicherin, sent a Note to the representative of the
Georgian Menshevik government Makharadze and a radio telegram
to the British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, stating that the
Soviet Government regarded the occupation of Batum as an
attempt to start another war in the Caucasus and to create a direct
threat to the security of the Soviet Republic. He drew attention
to the possible dire consequences, the responsibility for which
would fall entirely on the invaders and their accomplices.